Viewers watched footage filmed the day before of cataract surgery on his left eye, which Dr Steele had under local anaesthetic at the Optegra Eye Hospital in his home town of Manchester through the NHS.

Speaking before the operation, Dr Steele, 70, said "anyone knowing there'll be a surgeon putting a scalpel in your eye, it's natural to have slight reservations", but he said that he had already had the right eye done and "I didn't feel a thing".

Talking to hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby via a live link to the studio just a day after the surgery, Dr Steele said he was "seeing in high definition at last".

He said: "I was only in the operating theatre for 30 minutes, 10 minutes after that I'm on my way home.

"I'm absolutely fine, it's 24 hours since the operation and I've got great vision in both eyes."

He continued: "I was having double vision but no pain or discomfort and overnight that double vision disappeared and now I'm not having to wear glasses.

"Not only are things sharper, but colours are more intense than before the operation."

Asked what the experience was like, Dr Steele said: "The main concern when patients hear they've got to have cataracts surgery and not having a general anaesthetic, they think I'm lying on the operating table, I'm awake, I'll see the surgeon, the scalpel, I've got to keep my eyes still. No, there's none of that.

"All I could see was white, I couldn't see anything at all, I couldn't feel anything at all.

"I had my right eye done four weeks ago, I was actually looking forward to having my left eye done yesterday."

Dr Steele said it was his idea to film the operation for the ITV show because he "wanted to show how easy and remarkable the intricate surgery is now and to stop people being terrified of it".

He has appeared on the show as its resident health expert since the first episode in 1988 and is the longest serving member of the This Morning team.